Athletics a refuge for Lebanon High Senior Coping With Trauma of Abuse

.....Anna Numme’s next stop was a three-week stay at a mental-health treatment center in Brattleboro where she had been sent at an earlier age because she was cutting herself. She recalled bars on the center’s windows, wearing paper gowns and fights among the teenage residents.

Numme described telling the staff that a fellow resident was hoarding medication and planned to take her own life.

“Horrible food and there were times you couldn’t listen to music or read,” Numme said. “I was in there with a bunch of kids who made me realize that I don’t have it so bad.”

Pam and Anna Numme said they’ve engaged in extensive mental health therapy during the past few years; Anna’s was mandated by the state when she revealed the extent of the abuse she had suffered to mental health workers in Brattleboro. Although initially bitter about having to participate in therapy, Anna said the sessions helped, but she no longer attends them regularly. Instead, she often relies on athletics.

“I have (post-traumatic stress disorder) and on those hard days, when that stuff starts to come up again, I can go sort myself out in the weight room or on the mat or in the boat,” she said......

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Bethany`s Notes: A very hard read but also a good understanding how sports an help one heal from past trauma. That doesn`t mean things don`t come up but rather sports an be an outlet for healing.